In the time that is left
by Izumi1909
Summary: Emil and Lalli make it to the outpost, an unexpected guest in tow. Soon after, the Icleandic pick-up ship comes close enough for its on-board mage to contact the crew. But a lot can happen in the days left before they actually get onboard. Diverges from canon somewhere after the end of Chapter 20.
1. Those left behind

**Note:** On one hand, many aspects of this story quite deliberately diverge from canon and what Minna has revealed in streams over the summer, as the idea was to imagine how the last chapter could have gone if some of my long-held personal theories were true. On the other, the story progressed in short chunks for a good part of the second half, and canon itself was sometimes what got the ideas rolling again, and acted as a glue between the last personal ideas wanted to put in.

 **Those left behind**

Mikkel decided that the complete overhaul this conversation had just given his world view had at least two positive aspects to it. The first, and the most obvious, was that if he understood the situation correctly, Lalli would be able survive until the boat's arrival. His chances of a full recovery were also as good as they could be, given both the crew's circumstances and the fact that he had spent several days unconscious with extremely minimal care. The second good aspect was that the prospect of going back to the showers and speaking to the all-too-familiar face that had turned out to be hiding under ten years' worth of dirty hair and beard now seemed more bearable to Mikkel than it had less than an hour ago. Sigrun had offered to speak with the new arrival instead of Mikkel the second she had grasped the situation in which he was. However, her offer hadn't been completely selfless; both Mikkel's medical knowledge and his understanding of Icelandic had suddenly become needed in the barracks while he was giving their new arrival an initial clean-up and haircut. Trying to talk with said new arrival, meanwhile, was something that Sigrun could do. But now that he had come to somewhat accepting that Reynir could use magic to rouse Lalli's body sufficiently to enable him eat and drink a little for a few minutes at a time, he felt that he and Sigrun should swap places. The woman who had spent her life working with mages should be the one talking with Emil about his claim that Lalli's mind was somehow currently in his body. Mikkel should be the one talking with his brother.

As he walked back to the showers, Mikkel realized he was probably going to need to put Michael somewhere else than the barracks they were all using. Strenuous circumstances could damage the mind even more than the body. The worst case Mikkel had ever run into before this had lasted "only" a few weeks, yet had been more than enough to leave the person with persistent reflexes much more suited for a hostile environment than a friendly one. The IV system that he had managed to rig for Lalli was extremely fragile and some of the pieces were the last remaining working ones from larger reserves that had been neglected for ten years. They would be able to hold for the week, but he couldn't afford to have any of them damaged in the meantime. I was also a very bad idea to have the others, especially Reynir, in the same room as someone who could potentially hurt them without meaning to. As for Emil, Michael _had_ come to the outpost following him from wherever he had spent the last ten years, which had likely involved feeling safe doing so on some level. For all Mikkel knew, Emil's face could currently be more reassuring to Michael than his own; it wasn't rare for someone to initially trust only the first person they met among a group of complete strangers, and Michael having forgotten about their family was entirely possible. As he was about to enter the showers, Mikkel's brain caught up with the fact that it hadn't been given proper time to process some of the implications that came with the fact that Michael was still alive. By comparison, accepting the same for Emil and Lalli had been extremely easy. Those two had only been missing and presumed dead for a few days. The Madsen household had finished grieving for Michael ten years ago. Mikkel decided to lean against the showers' wall for a few moments before going inside and took time to reconcile with as much as he could before knowingly getting into another conversation that more likely to be straining than not.

Whatever time he had ended up taking, Sigrun had decided to leave the showers before Mikkel got around going inside them:  
-Ah, I was just about to get you. Look, I tried everything I could think of, but I've found that when people stay alone for too long, all languages they didn't grow up with become like Finnish to them. And you're the only Dane who's here besides him right now.  
-I was going to get you to watch the boys while I tried talking to him. I just needed a moment before doing so. Long story short on my side it that Reynir can revive Lalli for short spurts during which we'll be able to give him food and more water. Emil also asked about something for which you're much more likely to have the answer than I am.  
-Sounds good. I'll go make sure nobody sets the barracks on fire.  
Mikkel briefly realized that if magic was real, setting the barracks on fire could very well be a hazard from all three of the boys.

He had forgotten what his face looked like after all this time. Now that the woman had left, he was able to give a good look to himself in the mirror from the stool on which he was sitting and notice he had definitely become older. It took a few moments for him to realize that if he were a little heavier, he would look a lot like the man who had cut his hair, shaved him, washed him and given him a clean set of clothes. Then he remembered. He had a family back home. A family that he had given up on ever seeing again, and had simply stopped thinking about at some point, as he had done for many other things. Could the man have been one of his family members? Which one, then? He realized that while he remembered many people and an even larger number of animals, they all blurred together. He was in the middle of trying to mentally reconstruct at least one individual person from that hazy crowd when the man who had washed him came back and greeted him. He hadn't quite understood what that the woman had been telling him, leaving him with no idea what to answer. This time, he didn't hesitate upon simply returning the greeting he just heard. The other man came to sit on the empty stool facing his own.  
-Do you remember your name?  
This was a good question, he realized. Unfortunately, his mind returned a blank slate.

The trolls had never cared what his name was, and his means of survival had devolved into mindlessly reciting the same story each time he was prompted for it. At the beginning, he had told a different story each evening. When he had run out of stories and decided to loop back to the first one, the trolls hadn't noticed, and continued giving him food so they could get another story the next day. After a while, it became hard for him to tell the most elaborate one, as he had stopped being able understand it himself. He had abandoned another one upon noticing that the trolls seemed to like it much less than the others. His repertoire has progressively dwindled, without the trolls noticing he was using the same handful of stories over and over again. It eventually got reduced to two, both of which were greeted as if they were new each time they were told. The now sole remaining tale was the one from which he had semi-accidentally borrowed his means of survival. The story of a powerful man who couldn't stand the idea of his wife bedding other men than himself and solved it by keeping his spouses for one day at a time before having them executed. The number of unmarried young women dwindling until the next woman in line was a storyteller whose only request was to work her trade one last time before she died. The last story she wanted to tell being so long that she couldn't go from its beginning to its end in a single evening. A new story getting started right after that one ended but requiring a few extra evenings to be finished as well. The trick lasting long enough that by the time she ran out of stories, her husband had become a better man from listening to them and ended his policy of systematically having his wives executed among many positive changes to the lands he ruled.

It took him a few moments to realize that he hadn't answered the other man while he was visiting his memories. He finally settled for letting a barely audible "no" out.  
-Do you remember any of your family members or people you worked with?  
He was honest about the current state of his memories on the subject and took advantage of his answer to hesitantly ask the other man if _he_ knew him. It turned out to be the case. His name being Michael sounded about right, as did the other man being his brother and him having been among the trolls for ten years. After that, he was encouraged to ask his own questions. This was how he found how long he had been with the trolls, the reason Mikkel and his companions had come to this outpost after all this time, and who the other people were. By the time Mikkel finished mentioning that they had had a skald who was now dead, Michael had suddenly gotten extremely tired and wanted nothing more that to go to sleep. He was brought to the infirmary, the only place besides the barracks with beds. Mikkel explained about having to keep his current crewmates safe first and foremost, and the protocol for the situation in which Michael was entailed treating him as potential risk to others until someone with "psychiatric expertise" gave a proper evaluation of his mental state. He also mentioned that he was doing this for Michael's own safety as well; at this point, anyone hurting any of the boys, even accidentally, was likely going to be on the receiving end of their captain's fist.

Trond was quite certain that this was the first time Onni was talking without being spoken to first in an entire week. In such circumstances, he made sure to listen:  
-I thought I quite clearly told you to not come back.  
Trond barely had time to realize that Onni must have spoken Icelandic for him to understand him before a voice that was definitely not that of one of the house's occupants echoed in the entire living room:  
-Fine! If you're not interested, other people will definitely be!  
Some sort of light blob jumped out of Onni, landed on the floor and took a gradually more distinct and animal-like shape until it was definitely a dog sporting a combination of red and white fur. Trond immediately knew what it meant: a mage's fylgja. Luck had it that while the voice had made the three other adult occupants of the come to the living room, Taru had been the only one to make it in time to see part of the transition from light blob to dog. Torbjörn and Siv, on the other hand, arrived just in time to wonder how a dog had gotten into their house and fail to notice the slight glow emanating from it. The dog gave the room a quick survey and seemed satisfied upon seeing the three that had just made their way to the door. The same voice as before reverberated through the living room, while the dog's mouth didn't move at all:  
-So uh… We made it to the pick-up spot yesterday and Emil and Lalli caught up with us just this morning. On their way to join us, they accidentally woke up a giant and killed it, but they made a big mess while doing it. The big mess forced them to take another route to the pick-up point, made Sigrun think they were dead when she went looking for them and did something to Lalli that kept me from contacting him, so he couldn't tell me he and Emil were still alive. But now they're both here and both okay.  
Trond quickly understood what Onni had probably been sitting on for the past few days. In the present case, Lalli's fate had been connected to Emil's, while Torbjörn and Siv would have refused to believe such news if Onni had told him he had gotten it via a channel in which they didn't believe. Onni crossed his arms and very purposefully sat on the couch in such a way that his back was to the dog:  
-I fail to see any difference with the news you had last time. If Lalli has been in any situation that would keep you from contacting him for an entire week, he's good as dead, regardless of what state his body may currently be in.  
The dog briefly glanced at Onni before speaking again:  
-Actually, Lalli isn't _completely_ lost. I'm not sure how it happened, but it looks like he's in Emil's dream realm right now. He has no idea how to get back to his body and I was hoping someone here would be able to help. Uh… by the way, I don't think I'll be able to continue doing this much longer. Is there anything else you want to know?  
That one, at least, was easy. Trond interjected before any of the Swedes or Finns could speak:  
-What is Tuuri's status? The rescue boat needs that information.  
The dog jerked its head in Onni's direction:  
-You didn't tell them?  
The dog vanished into thin air.


	2. Slow rebuild

**Slow rebuild**

Onni turned out to not know nearly as much about the exact circumstances of Tuuri's death as Taru had initially expected him to. He had literally seen her go while still in his coma, and in the process had realized that Reynir had hidden something from him upon checking on him. That had resulted in Reynir only getting to tell that Lalli and Emil were missing before being forbidden from contacting Onni ever again. Taru, given the circumstances, decided to tell Onni about Tuuri's request, and the last news she and the others had gotten about Tuuri, at a time at which she had yet to show any symptoms. When it came to how Tuuri had gotten bitten in the first place, Onni correctly guessed when it had happened and all but spelled out that his attempt to prevent such a thing at all costs was the reason of his coma. It was no use reminding him that he still had Lalli, considering both their current circumstances. As for Reynir being still alive in spite of having been in the same room as Tuuri when she had been bitten… she still wasn't sure whether that particular detail would make things better or worse from Onni's point of view.

Trond came back from the kitchen, in which had been explaining to the Västerströms what they had just seen and heard. Taru told him the little she had found out, and suggested they prepare a prioritized list of questions to ask the young Icelander should he show up again. Trond agreed before giving his own news:  
-I stuck to the basics and what they entailed on a practical level. It may have still been a little too much for them. I suggest finding the brats and making sure they have no intention of going in the kitchen for the next hour or so.

Because "his stomach needed to get used to proper food again", Emil's dinner, much like the meal he had eaten upon his arrival, was a soup made out of the little non-solid food in stock. Mikkel had made a big pot of it upon their arrival and re-heated it when dinnertime came, as he was also feeding the soup to Lalli. In the light of the news concerning the new unexpected tag-along, Emil didn't have the heart to protest Mikkel going straight to bed after having eaten his own dinner. Between Sigrun being ill, Reynir needing to sleep to do his magic and Emil wanting to check on Lalli, all three of them went for an early night despite the surreal atmosphere that made the possibility of the entire day turning out to be a dream feel all too real.

Onni was letting his fylgja come into his dream realm for purely practical reasons, but Reynir was afraid to get even that permission revoked with the news he had been asked to pass in priority. Onni had clearly not liked hearing it and Reynir could not think of anything to say that didn't risk making things worse. Whatever his feelings where, Onni kept them at bay for long enough to ask Reynir questions on behalf of the people back in Sweden and listen to the answers Reynir could give until he could no longer maintain his connection to his fylgja. One question in particular was conspicuously absent, but Reynir has no idea whether it was due to Onni being unable to ask it at all or having a good reason to no want to ask _him_.

xxxx

Mikkel had given both Lalli and Emil a wash before tending to the man who had turned out to be his brother, but it hadn't been enough to get entirely rid of the olfactory results of the trekking. Sigrun was aware that she didn't exactly smell like bunch of fresh flowers herself, but the fact that the whiff coming from the other lower bunk was different from her own helped cement the fact that Lalli was really here. Sigrun mustered up the strength to stop lying on her belly and sit on her bunk, on the off-chance that she wasn't the only one trying to make as little noise as possible under the assumption that nobody else was awake. Noise came from one of the higher bunks and the cat quickly joined her, looking at her expectantly. The little beast now knew that if she was noisy enough that early in the morning, the one person awake would feed her to make her silent and keep her from waking the others.  
-You win, Pusekatt.  
Just as she was picking a couple of cans of food out of the cupboard, she heard something sounding very much like someone who had forgotten he was now sleeping right under the ceiling due to Emil having been impossible to put any further away from Lalli than the bunk right over his. She briefly glanced behind her to get her suspicions confirmed and got a third can of food out for Reynir, as he was coming down from his bed. All three of them ended up having breakfast in silence, and quickly stopped pretending they weren't regularly glancing at Emil and Lalli's bunks. Sigrun was extremely curious to find out more about what had happened to those two, as the little Emil had been willing to share the previous day had related to how he had ended up bringing a Danish soldier back with him and the reason Lalli was unlikely to wake up soon unless they got the help of a mage who knew what they were doing. Sigrun didn't want to miss a single word about what had happened over the past few days that Emil could drop once he would be awake, a craving that conflicted with her knowledge that both of them needed to get as much rest as they could while waiting for the boat.

Emil started squirming, prompting the cat to jump on his bunk and start licking his face. He responded to the gesture by happily petting her for a few moments before waking up completely and promptly half-slipped, half jumped out of his bed to check on Lalli, then notice Mikkel was still sleeping.  
-Come and grab a can. It should get close enough to soup if you chew long enough, and it actually tastes better than his cooking.  
Sigrun quickly regretted pointing this out as an option when a combination of the energy Emil could spare on eating and his rich kid upbringing worked together in making chewing and talking mutually exclusive acts for him. By the time Emil finished the can, Mikkel had woken up and started making more soup, telling Emil he'd rather have him eat it for dinner if he had had tuna for breakfast. Next on the docket was feeding Lalli. This time, at least, Emil stayed near the table instead of hovering over Mikkel.  
-So, how you think he moves your body?  
Emil waited a few moment before speaking again:  
-Well, you kind of did it in a way that time you gave me a headache.  
Another pause, before Emil spoke again:  
-Or I could punch him on your behalf a little earlier, if you wish.  
Mikkel looked at Emil with a raised eyebrow right as Sigrun lost the little patience she still had:  
-Hey, buddy, would you mind filling in for people who can't hear Lalli?  
Emil briefly looked at her as if he had forgotten she was sitting right next to him:  
-Err… sorry. It was just the two of us all this time, so I guess I need to get used to the three of you being here again. Lalli's suspecting that Reynir is doing something he told him to not do make his body move, so even though he's tolerating it right now out of necessity, he's still a little tempted to punch Reynir once he recovers.  
Sigrun's mind latched onto the part about Emil having been alone with Lalli and getting used to having other people around again, realizing that she was needing to get used to having them around as well. She had been so eager to make sure she made it to the boat that she hadn't realized that it was going to involve seeing other people again after it having been only the six – now five – of them for several weeks. Those new people were probably going to be treating picking them all up as a side chore to getting Reynir back.

xxxx

Now that the essential information had been shared on both sides, Onni suggested to Reynir that it would best to stick to one contact per day, unless there was an emergency. Reynir answered that he would make sure that Sigrun agreed with the idea. Onni was unfortunately going to have to tolerate that dog, that was still preferable to Reynir's actual face, for a few more days; the news Reynir had brought this morning included the fact that the attempt to fix the outpost's radio had been unsuccessful, in part for reasons that didn't need to be mentioned. As Reynir's dog was fading away, the memory of Taru telling him about Tuuri's request decided to pop into Onni's mind, alongside the realization that Reynir hadn't come to see him between the first night after Tuuri had been bitten and the night after the one on which he had seen her fly away. The possibility that Reynir's silence could have been requested by Tuuri crossed Onni's mind, but in his current mood, it wasn't nearly enough to calm general anger he had against just about everyone involved in this expedition. He woke up, ready to face the barrage of questions from some of the very people he was angry at.

-Let's try this again. Our siblings, from oldest to youngest.  
-Maja, Mille, Malthe, Morten…  
-Morten is our father. "Martin" is the name you're looking for.  
The look Michael gave him told him that the exercise of getting all their relatives straight had definitely taken all the mental energy he had for the day, in no small part due to his extremely stunted ability to read.  
-Is there anything you want to do instead?  
-Time alone. Something to do. That doesn't make me tired like this.  
He pointed to the pieces of paper on which the names of their siblings and parents were written. Mikkel understood.  
-I'll see if there is anything that can fulfill this purpose here. But to be honest, even my crew is starved for entertainment other than each other's conversation. We only packed essentials and some of our skald's less cumbersome possessions when we left our vehicle. We also currently have no other reason to leave the outpost until the boat arrives. You can go walk outside during the day if it helps, just don't come to the barracks unless you really need to.  
Michael stayed silent for a few moments, clearly taking some time to process what he had been told, before answering:  
-Help you search? Now or later?  
Mikkel wanted to check on the others first, but it sounded like a good way to spend a little more time with him, keep him busy and delegate the little he was able to delegate all in one.

The few wood games that they found in the small recreation room were for at least two people, but the perfect one to keep in the infirmary was found in the form of a set of dice, that would have the side effect of being usable to test Michael's mental calculation capabilities and exercise them if they had been stunted in any way. Mikkel made sure Michael returned to the infirmary, before taking one of the chess sets back to the barracks, alongside a few books. He didn't expect the others to want to use either of them immediately, but at least, if any of them ended up thinking about Tuuri or the precarious state in which some of the still-living currently were for too long, it wouldn't be from lack of something else to keep their minds busy.


	3. An early reunion

**An early reunion**

Onni got the strange impression that whatever gods were currently paying attention to him had decided that he should be exposed to various reminders that other people were going to get to see their loved ones come back soon. The radio conversation with the Icelanders relieved to find out that Reynir was alive and well had sufficiently gotten on his nerves to make him leave the room, only to end up face to face with a picture of Emil and the children hanging on one of the hallway walls. Onni had never really checked the house for photos of him due to trying to care for the other members of the crew only in their capacity to keep Tuuri – and Reynir to an extent, once he had realized he was a non-combatant as well – safe. Among them, Emil had definitely been the hardest to make _stay_ a mere file photo, and the young man now _had_ to stay alive for Lalli to have any kind of chance of recovering from his current situation. The closest Emil had come to participating to a radio conversation Onni could understand had been Mikkel reporting everyone's health status. As for the conversations he _hadn't_ been able to understand, Emil hadn't participated in them much either, which was strange considering his uncle and aunt were on the other end of the line. Or maybe it wasn't; if Trond's comments were anything to go by, the guy was an idiot who had been intentionally tricked into thinking the mission would be much easier than it actually was and could very well now be giving the cold shoulder to the very people who had tricked him. But this opened another question: how had Emil ended up being the one who had gone missing alongside Lalli? The report of the tank having broken down some time before Tuuri had died had confirmed Onni's guess that Lalli would have wanted to stay wherever Tuuri had died for a few extra hours while other members of the crew secured a camping spot a few hours away; this accounted for the separation of the crew into two groups happening in the first place. He could also picture the other members of the crew not being entirely certain of what, exactly, Lalli intended to do while left alone, resulting in one of them staying with Lalli to make sure actually made it back once he was done. But why Emil? It couldn't be Reynir for obvious reasons, but Onni could see plenty of them for which either Sigrun or Mikkel would have been better suited for the job. Wait, hadn't Lalli once mentioned he thought he could be making friends with someone on the crew?

His mind got interrupted in putting two and two together by a hand being waved between his face and the picture:  
-Onni, they want to ask you something.  
He recognized Taru's voice. He went back into the living room and was offered one of the seats next to the radio. The woman on the other side apparently knew enough about magic to know that Lalli being stuck in a non-mage's dream realm didn't add up with Onni having _been told_ some of the more recent news from the expedition crew. Onni thought that "Reynir is a mage" was a simple enough concept that either Trond or Taru could convey it without needing his help, but the woman seemed to want to make really sure she didn't misunderstand the situation. Onni answered her questions the best he could, but had trouble understanding the reason for which some of them were being asked. From what he remembered, foreign mages were chosen rather than born with their powers, so it couldn't be _that_ odd for Reynir to suddenly have them, especially after accidentally getting himself in an environment in which he could use all the help his gods could reasonably provide. Trond finally spoke:  
-Ma'am, can I please remind you that you are talking to a _Finnish_ mage and the older brother of the young woman who died? All the odd things about the young man's magic showing up when it did are probably going over his head, and it's most certainly a bad idea to make this discussion more tedious for him than it needs to be.  
After that, the questions became more to the point and easier to answer. Onni still couldn't make out what the "odd things" were supposed to be, and the extent to which he currently cared about this particular subject wasn't enough to muster up the energy to ask anyone questions about it. The radio call was quickly wrapped up, with arrangements made for the next contact.

-For all I know, Ólafur, Guðrún, Bjarni and myself could end up dying before having children of our own. Reynir was supposed to be the one who would stay home and safe. When I told our parents he had been chosen, the first thing they asked was if there was any way to hide it from him. There was, but I also knew he envied us for being able to travel internationally. The only reason he hadn't tried to do so already was that our parents had lied to him about the travel ban on non-immunes being still in place. I knew he was going to try travelling sooner or later and couldn't bear the idea of him getting into trouble that basic magic could save him from while unaware of having powers. So, I made being in danger a condition under which he could become aware of his powers. I didn't tell anyone else about it in case the seal was still holding. I'm sorry about this, Njala. I'm going to need to apologize to him, as well.

Emil had definitely come down with a fever, which wasn't surprising considering what he had gone through over the past few days. He and Sigrun still somehow found the energy to argue over which of the two had it worse instead of actually getting sleep, while Reynir had made it his life's mission to provide as much help as he could, which resulted in Mikkel telling him to take care of himself first; the last thing he needed was yet another patient. After that, Reynir gave the books a quick look, then set up the chessboard. Kitty jumped on the table and decided to sniff the pieces, knocking some of them over in the process. One of the pawns ended up on the floor, and promptly got chased around the floor by the cat for a good two minutes before Reynir got his hands on it again. By the time Reynir's brief ordeal was over, Sigrun was very obviously stifling a laughter, and eventually had to take a deep breath to make up for the stifling. She fell asleep little after that. Reynir smiled very briefly while looking in her direction before re-arranging the other fallen pieces and starting to move those on both sides of the board. Mikkel was too busy with the various small things to be done to be his opponent, but there were definitely worse signs of boredom than playing chess alone; trying to counter one's own moves was actually a legitimate exercise to get better at the game. Emil started stating the rules of chess out loud in the tone he used to answer questions asked by Lalli and fell asleep before he could finish. Mikkel had told Michael as much of the truth that he could without getting magic involved when he had asked after them.

xxxx

Hildur's plan had been to sneak into Reynir's dream realm while he was still awake to be able to explain the situation as soon as he went to bed, ready for whichever response he could have to both seeing her again and finding out what she had done all these years. Instead, she found his dream realm as active as it would be if he was asleep, but Reynir's own self absent. Hildur then remembered one of the things Njala had told her and looked in the direction of the other dream realm, which belonged to the Finnish mage. If she squinted, she could make him out between the trees doing what she guessed to be some mild body control. He ended the task almost as soon as she noticed him and started heading back to his own realm. About half-way out of the other mage's swamp, Reynir took notice of her and ran straight into her arms. He sobbed for a good two minutes before realizing the possibility that she could not be real and the fact that she owed him an explanation if she was. She barely had time to give him the short version before he was woken up. She looked though his eyes while he was trying to convince a blond man with sideburns that he was alright and needed to go back to sleep to speak with someone. Wherever Reynir had been sleeping was high enough for Hildur to notice a couple of other people sitting at a large table, looking in Reynir's direction. Hildur had thought Reynir looked a little underfed upon seeing him, but she now could tell that he hadn't been any more deprived of food than the others. Actually, the short blonde person at the table had looked at little worse off than Reynir when it came to any signs of malnutrition. Once Reynir came back, he had many questions, and unsurprisingly didn't like the answers to many of them. The fact that he had, himself, recently concealed bad news from someone only for it to backfire when the person had found out emerged during the conversation. Njala had off-handedly mentioned that the non-immune skald of the crew had died little after the expedition's home base in Sweden had lost radio contact with the crew. Hildur had been so focused on each day bringing her closer to where Reynir was over the past few weeks that she had never considered the possibility that he could have made friends with at least one of the explorers in spite of the situation. Reynir asked Hildur to leave him alone to process everything he had found out until at least the next morning, right before she got woken up by Njala back on the ship.

Sigrun sighed:  
-And when, exactly, would have been a good time to have either you or Tuuri basically ask him "Hey, kid, do you know of any mages among your family or friends? Because I'm quite sure someone's been making sure you didn't notice you have powers for at least a few years". It would have accomplished nothing besides making him aware of an issue that he had no means of properly doing something about until we got back to civilization. Then you mentioned his sibs and I realized it could be one of them. Then these ghosts started following us. Then Tuuri got bitten.  
Mikkel relayed Sigrun's explanation to Reynir. Fortunately, Mikkel reported his reply to be understanding of Sigrun's position, which was more than she expected considering the lateness of the hour. She wasn't sure what to do aside from letting everyone involved sleep on the situation. Upon closing her eyes, she wondered what Lalli was making of the situation, if he was paying attention to it at all.

Michael had already told Mikkel about it, but he unfortunately had yet to figure out a way to stop reflexively reciting the entirety of the lone story he had been telling the trolls every evening in spite of no longer needing to do it to stay alive. Memories of there being storytellers back home were slowly coming back to him, and Michael guessed that if he didn't find a way to stop it, there could be a way to make use out of it. But for that, he would need more stories, and he remembered none of the ones he used to tell when his repertoire was richer. An idea crossed his mind as he remembered Mikkel collecting books to bring back to his crewmates: maybe he could ask Mikkel to tell him another story, and see if he could try reciting it instead of the usual one the next evening.


	4. Closed doors, open windows

**Closed doors, open windows**

With the inevitable difficult conversation with Reynir out of the way, Hildur's other task of the night was to see what she could do about getting the Finn back to his own body. Going to the Finn's dream realm, then reaching into the depths of the dream sea in which the non-mages had their dream realms, which was intended as no more than a decent starting point, turned out to be a surprisingly direct route. There were somewhat appropriate introductions to her charge and the realm's actual owner, after which Hildur brought Lalli back to his own dream realm without too much trouble. Once there, Lalli became much more talkative than he had been so far, asking her various questions about "foreign" magic, what she had done to Reynir and why, when she had brought him back while not entirely sure he understood the exact nature of her ties to Reynir. Once Lalli got all the answers Hildur could provide, he asked her if she had any questions for him with a tone that gave the impression he wished she didn't. She took him up on his offer nonetheless and ended with a relatively personal one:  
-Reynir mentioned that someone shot the troll that got into the tank before it could attack him. Was it you?  
-Yes.  
Her heartfelt thanks seemed to catch him off-guard. She wasn't sure of the reason. She had told both him and Emil that she was Reynir's older sister upon her introduction, leaving them to figure out the details for themselves according to their respective knowledge of how things worked in Iceland. It couldn't come across as _that_ odd to get thanks for saving Reynir's life from her. It took her a while to realize that his mind had probably been focused on the life he _hadn't_ been able to save for at least a week at this point. She was far from being a stranger to the phenomenon, but had each time been surrounded by people doing their best to remind her of the feats she had accomplished rather than her failures. There had, however, been this one time where the circumstances had been so strenuous that neither giving comfort nor asking for it felt appropriate. She had no idea what it was exactly like to be trapped in a non-mage's dream realm while that very same person was the only one able to tend to one's unconscious body, but it was very unlikely to be the right circumstances to properly process a recent death.

What had happened between Reynir and the deceased skald's older bother had made it much easier than planned for Hildur to convince Reynir to let her replace him as the one to relay any news to him in the morning. It took meeting Onni for Hildur to fully realize that the shared last names of several of the Finns involved in the expedition wasn't entirely been the kernel of truth in the well-known "Finland. Ten thousand people. Ten last names." joke. Both Lalli and Onni had _actually_ been close family with the deceased young woman. The fact that they had contributed to enabling people they didn't know that well to go home was now even less likely to have any meaning to them compared to whom they hadn't managed to keep alive in spite of their efforts. She made sure to mention to Onni the fact that that she had returned Lalli to his body as early as the conversation enabled her to do so. The situation, however, became more complicated when having let Reynir pour his heart out to her the previous evening turned to have resulted in Hildur knowing more about the finer details of the actual death than Onni did. Her first reflex upon realizing the facts that she had let slip were new to Onni was to ask if he wanted her to stay for a while. The response reminded her that the man with whom he was talking was still a Finn:  
-You're definitely his sister. Please leave if you have nothing else to tell me this morning.

This morning, Mikkel showed up in the infirmary with a cat that looked quite young and news that Lalli had regained consciousness. The story of how his crew had ended up with it was sufficiently entertaining while being fairly easy to follow, which gave Michael something else to try reciting that evening without needing to ask for it. At some point, he realized that the fact that he got to enjoy the cat's company meant that Mikkel's crew didn't in the meantime.  
-Don't worry about it. She's here because they all more or less agree that you could use a little time with her as well. Besides, most of us will have to tell her goodbye sooner or later. Provided we don't end up having to give her up to some institution, no more than one of us will be in position to see her on regular basis. I, myself, got used to never enjoying the same company for very long. Lalli never really liked her. Emil is the one who found her. Sigrun can put her in a good training facility. Reynir has contributed in ways that go beyond simply making up for the fact that he wasn't part of the plan, and we have few options to offer him proper compensation without getting him more involved in frowned upon activities than he needs to be. It's a bridge we will cross when we get to it, for now.  
One comment caught Michael's attention:  
\- "Some institution". For me too?  
Mikkel sighed:  
-I honestly have no idea. The only thing I'm sure of at this point is that they are unlikely to let you go straight home. But wherever you end up, I will try to get a job nearby if the actual place doesn't want me around.  
Mikkel had mentioned being on the mission because he frequently changed jobs with a hint of embarrassment. In the present case, it was a relief to Michael as it meant that there would be at least one familiar face wherever he ended up.

The others had taken advantage of the fact that being in Emil's dream realm enabled Lalli to understand them to inform him of the reasons his body was set up the way it was and the nature of the contraption Mikkel had connected to his arm. This had included what he should and should not do if he ever managed to regain consciousness. While the various aches and weaknesses where a constant reminder of the reason it was better for him to be back in his body sooner rather than later, there had been a definite downgrade in the taste of the food, his ability to understand the others and what he could do to pass time. The amount of recovery needed by his body made talking straining, so spoken Swedish lessons were immediately discarded. Getting read to was briefly considered, but Lalli's level of Swedish was too low even start trying to understand Danish. Emil finally settled for talking to Lalli about himself with anecdotes similar to those that Lalli had used to keep Emil's mind focused off the troll voices. Unfortunately, the toll the travel had taken on Emil's own body had resulted in him needing to take a nap while Lalli wasn't quite tired enough to fall back asleep. As Sigrun needed just as much rest as Emil did and Mikkel was constantly in and out of the large room they were all sharing, Lalli found himself watching Reynir playing a game that he knew to be meant for two people alone. Lalli had never cared much about how the Icelander spent his days, as long as he was available when his particular brand of magic was needed. He had never thought much about the fact that he had been spending so much time with Tuuri. After all, if things suddenly became dangerous for the non-immunes, it saved everyone the trouble of locating the two of them separately. However, Tuuri and Reynir had continued talking to each other, and at some point, even managed to share one last game of cards, even after the two of them being in the same room had turned from practical to a hazard. Now, the image of Reynir playing a game that Tuuri liked alone was yet another reminder of the fact that she was gone. Lalli remembered how he had ended up in his current state, trying to keep that giant from harming Emil at any cost despite the fact that running away would have guaranteed at least one of them would make it to camp instead of having a high risk of getting both of them killed. One of Onni's explanations of what a friend was had been that the really good ones became like family. It had taken Lalli a long time to be able to confidently use that word for himself and Emil; he was now starting to wonder about Tuuri and Reynir while not being sure it was relevant anymore.

xxxx

Both Hildur, who had more medical knowledge, and Reynir, who could quickly tell Mikkel if anything was wrong, showed up in Lalli's dream realm that evening. After asking a few questions and encouraging Lalli to report anything that felt strange to him, Hildur told Reynir that the care Lalli was getting could continue as is for now. As the two of them departed, Lalli grabbed the tip of Reynir's blue flowing sweater:  
-Come back after you give news to Mikkel.  
-Uh… okay.

When Reynir came back to the dream world, he found a duckwalk leading form the edge of Lalli's dream realm the closest to him to the raft in the swamp's center. Lalli was sitting cross-legged on a part of the raft that would let it hold is Reynir stepped onto it from the end of the duckwalk, which he took as an invitation to do so. As he sat down, he noticed that a chessboard was floating in the raft's hollow center. The most obvious possible meaning of that made him raise an eyebrow:  
-I clearly remember Tuuri saying you have no interest in chess.  
-That was before. Tonight, I want to try playing. But I don't know how to do it and you obviously do.  
Reynir remembered his own reasons for setting the board up and that Lalli was very likely to share at least a couple of them at the moment. He _had_ been recently looking for a way he could help Lalli beyond what Mikkel and Emil's combined efforts were already taking care of. If Lalli was actually asking for his help, he might as well go ahead and give it.

Hildur and Reynir had talked a little before going to check on Lalli, only to figure out that Reynir still needed a little time to think before they could have a real conversation again. The glimpse she caught of him and Lalli apparently playing a game together in the latter's dream realm only further convinced her that the time wasn't quite right to try making up for years of actively obscuring the truth from him. She suddenly decided that there was no good reason to make Onni wait until the next morning to learn of Lalli's recovery going smoothly as far as anybody could currently tell. Right after giving the news, she remembered that dream sea had been reported to be much harder to cross for Finnish mages than for Icelandic mages and asked Onni if he had any interest in being brought to Lalli's dream realm by her:  
-I am perfectly able to go there if I wish. But it is still a feat reserved for strict necessity. If Lalli is indeed recovering properly with the care he's currently getting, travelling only to see him would put both of us at unnecessary risk.  
What would… a couple of things suddenly slotted into place, making Hildur extremely grateful for the extra protections she had been able to cast upon Reynir over the years, and leading to a much better question to ask:  
-I've been needing to dodge something that seems to be looking for specific people each time I've been coming here, on the off-chance you or Lalli were the ones it was looking for. Do you happen to know anything about that? I really don't need to know _why_ it's going after you, I just need to know _what_ it is so I can do a better job of making sure I don't accidentally end up helping it find the two of you.  
Onni let out a sigh:  
-It's unfortunately impossible to answer the second question without answering the first. It's very unlikely to be anything you heard about in that magic school of yours.


	5. Barriers

**Barriers**

-Do you need me to not come here anymore? The boat should be able to pick them up in three or four days, and we can keep news coming to you on the radio in the meantime.  
If what was hunting the two Finnish cousins was that powerful and that dangerous, even coming to Onni's dream realm to convey information that he could get by easy to implement other means was a risk. Hildur suddenly remembered an aspect of the situation that Onni may like a little less:  
-I unfortunately can't keep this to myself because Njala is especially wary about me lying to her again, since I didn't want to tell anybody about Reynir in case the seal I put on his powers was still holding. But I'll do my best to have as few other people know as it's possible. And keep my eyes and ears out for anything that could help against it.  
Onni seemed to reconsider the situation for a few moments before speaking:  
-Do what you need to do to keep it from figuring out how close it is to its goal. It must be nice to live in a place where you can afford to lock away a mage's powers for the sole reason of them not being part of your family's plans.  
With what she now knew of this family's situation, what Onni had just told her felt _extremely_ restrained compared to what she could easily imagine him to be actually thinking at the moment. And he was right. She couldn't even start grasping the concept of living in a place so strained for resources and people that if the younger relative you wanted to protect at all costs turned out to have immunity, magic or both, you couldn't afford to _not_ have them trained as one of the community's protectors. On the way back to her own dream realm, she came quite near Lalli's place, and briefly squinted to get a good look at his face. She realized that once one made abstraction of the thin and worn face, he was probably just around Reynir's age.

xxxx

The last piece of news coming from the boat through Reynir this morning was about to make dodging the existence of magic around Michael harder than it already was:  
-They don't want him in Iceland, and they've been in contact with the Mora mental ward to prepare a spot for him. They understand the situation enough to not expect him to know where he'll be going before he gets on the boat, but they are informing us now so you can make preparations with this in mind.  
Mikkel was already starting to make a list of places he could try in Mora when the least subtle elbow nudge ever from Sigrun reminded him of one of the things he meant to do before going to see Michael:  
-Do you feel able to do something else than share news with your sister yet? I know I've been busy and that I don't quite understand the situation, but don't let that keep you from asking me about anything you think I may be able to help with.  
Judging by the look on Reynir's face, Sigrun had been right about him not considering talking with Mikkel about what had been happening, after all the times he had refused to take the subject of magic seriously. Mikkel looked back at the last several and realized that between getting used to magic being real, the news of Michael being alive and his attention being needed right and left, he had never actually taken the time to apologize for his past attitude about the subject. Doing it now felt like as good a time as any, and Reynir responded to it by saying he may be in the mood to talk later.

In the infirmary, Michael explained to Mikkel what he had been trying to do about the story he had been telling the trolls every evening all this time and his failed attempt to replace it the previous evening. Mikkel thought it was a good idea for something he had come up with on his own in his current state, and encouraged him to keep trying. During the conversation, Michael brought up one of the metaphorical giants in the room:  
-I'm quite sure we were taught that trolls were killing machines that we must shoot in the head on sight. Why aren't you surprised that I was able to keep them from eating me just by telling them stories?  
-Emil reported having more or less of a conversation with a member of that bunch before running into you. You have always been good at keeping people distracted with either conversation or stories you knew about. If these trolls have retained enough humanity to hold a conversation, it makes sense that you, of all people, would find a way to survive while being surrounded by them. Though to be honest, the fact that this is far from the strangest thing I've went through during this trip is probably a factor as well.  
-What kind of thing would be stranger than that?  
Mikkel thought of a few recent events which, in hindsight and taken together, should have been more than enough to get him rid of his skepticism. Unfortunately, the most unambiguous of the two was tied to the night during which Tuuri had been condemned, so he went with the detour by the old church instead. He kept having to refer to older events to give Michael context until the little he could remember from the top of his head enabled him to the fill the blanks on his own. He quickly got to the related events pre-dating Tuuri's death, including that time in Kastellet where Reynir had suddenly asked to leave after allegedly seeing "shadow-things". Right around that point, Michael declared that the whole thing was getting too complicated for him to follow and asked to do something else if he had any time left. Between the reminder that there was only a dwindling number of days before they would get quarantined into separate rooms and something slotting into place concerning the decade-old failed reclamation attempt, the next item on the docket for Mikkel ended up spending some time staring at the sea to collect himself.

Mikkel had come with the cat and left her behind upon leaving, saying he'd come to take her back to the barracks later. Michael picked her up and remembered a specific aspect of the story he'd been told:  
-Trolls coming scare you. "Church" troll didn't scare you. Are trolls who like stories scary?  
An idea crossed his mind, before he realized that _not_ doing something like that was probably the main reason he was being kept in the building. Yet, if he could get enough time alone in the daytime while having the cat with him, he would find out something the others probably really wanted to know. Maybe one of them could try it. But who? The captain with a bad infection? The two exhausted young men he had followed here? The non-immune who wasn't even supposed to be on the mission? Mikkel, who hardly had the time? He thought again. Maybe people would come back with a cat and find out the truth. But what if they didn't bother with the cats and just shot any troll they ran into? Or if they did and the cats were still scared of them? That Emil guy knew where they were, so the new people would know how to find them. He needed to tell them to go hide somewhere else before he left. He realized nothing was keeping him from trying to leave with the cat right now. He picked the cat up in his arms, ran out the door, and quickly found the pair of chain-link fences on the small bridge between the platform on which the outpost was built and the ancient harbor to which it connected. However, as he got about a meter away from the innermost fence, it suddenly felt like he had had the tip a large, fully extended spring glued to his back all along. The invisible spring felt like it was pulling him away from the fence. In his surprise at the sensation, he accidentally let go of the cat.

xxxx

If Mikkel squinted a little more than usual, he could see a resemblance between the rune Reynir was drawing with a piece of coal on the floor of the storage space on top of the infirmary and the one he had handed everyone before the antique shop raid. He _had_ said that it was modification of a rune meant to keep sheep from straying too far away from it at the time, and he had more recently correctly guessed the modifications to make so it could work on people. The fact that it would have the same effect on _all_ people in the outpost until it was erased according to Reynir brought the Old World "it's not a bug, it's a feature" saying to Mikkel's mind. The rune that had kept Michael from leaving in the first place had been drawn on a whim on the wall next to Reynir's near-ceiling bunk the previous day, in a patch that was hard to see from the floor, but too easy to accidentally smudge while sleeping in Sigrun's taste. Prescience was another power Icelandic and Norwegian mages were supposed to have.

xxxx

There it was already. The limit of what he could do for Michael. Mikkel had been hoping that the fact that he would have to hand him over to someone more competent within a few days would at least leave him with too little time to actually hit some kind of obstacle. Pity for Rash victims ranged from tolerated to appreciated, as long as it led to concluding that taking them out of their misery was the nicest thing that could be done for them. That pity resulting in someone wanting trolls to actually stay alive in their current state wouldn't stand anywhere in the Known World, despite how understandable is was coming from someone who had spent a decade with them as their only companionship. The helpful insight on the subject ended up coming form, of all people, Emil, who had decided to get a breath of fresh air right around the time Mikkel was taking a small break of his own work and casually asked what was on his mind:  
-It was able to do this to me _because_ I considered killing it was doing it a favor. Maybe it wouldn't have worked if I didn't think of it that way. And the trolls your… brother was with. I attracted the others because I thought killing the first one was a good idea. And even before that, we didn't just kill all the trolls that got into our range because we would have attracted far more than we could deal with. Is there a way that we can report the place as being very dangerous because there are too many trolls in it? Lalli said they were a type that can start roaming at dusk, which means that they probably can also resist early sunrise, so it would be an extra reason to mark the place as dangerous.  
-We could do that, but it would also mark it as a priority target if those lands ever gets cleansed.  
-And _when_ would that be, exactly?  
Emil apologized almost as soon as he realized what he had said, but Mikkel had never been so relieved to hear a jab about Denmark's slowness at reconquering its old mainland from a Swede. It could work as reassurance for Michael, if anything else.

Once Mikkel went back to work, Emil decided to have one last walk around the outpost platform before going back to bed. When he found himself facing the gate, he suddenly got curious and tried to see how close he could get before Reynir's spell kicked in. When he felt it happen brutally in spite of having walked as slowly as he could without actually standing still, he saw how someone who wasn't expecting it at all to could be surprised enough to go unresponsive for a few minutes. This, along with the alarm raised by Kitty, had enabled them to bring Mikkel's bother – whose name Emil still had trouble pronouncing differently from Mikkel's – back to the infirmary without getting much resistance. He'd seen Reynir scribbling runes on random scraps of paper plenty of times, but was only now starting to wrap his mind around the idea that he was a mage; getting used to the idea where Lalli was concerned had taken enough brain-space for him to not even consider asking about Reynir until he had seen his anti-troll runes painted on some of the outpost's walls.

When he went back inside the barracks, Lalli was awake, and watching Reynir playing chess alone yet again. Emil grabbed a chair and went to sit next to Lalli's bed:  
-Ready to hear a story?  
Lalli replied with some of his limited Swedish vocabulary.  
-No.  
Emil followed Lalli's gaze and saw that he was still watching Reynir.  
-Is there any reason you'd rather watch him play chess alone?  
-Want learn how play. Harder than I thought. Need watch a lot.  
It was only then that Emil realized that while Reynir could have very well played from a seat that would have obstructed the board from Lalli's view, he was sitting on the end of the table that made his game visible to someone lying on the lower bunks. He really had no idea how Lalli managed to understand what was happening while only seeing the board sideways. Emil decided to get himself a better view and move his chair to the table's side, in a spot that put him on the other side of the board so Lalli could still see it. After a few moves, Reynir got stuck on how to move the pieces on the side closest to Emil. Emil, meanwhile, saw what move could be made. Realizing he couldn't point it out to Reynir verbally, he decided to suggest it by taking the piece, tapping the square on which he thought it should go a couple times, then putting it back where it had originally been. Reynir shrugged his shoulders and followed Emil's suggestion. He countered the move, but got stuck on his non-existent opponent's move again. Near the end of the game, they got hold of Mikkel just long enough for Reynir to tell Emil he could just go ahead and make the move he had in mind himself next time he got stuck on the opponent's move.


	6. Vacant post

**Vacant post**

The combination of Emil's fever and Reynir being surprisingly good at chess had kept their second game from lasting very long. Emil decided to have a short nap after drinking a cup of water offered by Reynir. Next thing he knew, Mikkel was waking him up because dinner was almost ready. Once again, just about everyone felt up for an early bedtime after eating.

Reynir had put enough together from his own memories to get somewhat of an idea of the position in which Hildur must have been when the gods had chosen him, and decide that he had kept the reunion to the exchange of essential information for a long enough time. Now, all he wanted was to spend as much time with her as both of them could spare, have her explain some memories he hadn't been able to make sense of on his own, and talk properly about some of the things he had blurted out to her after finding out what she had done to him. Lalli's recovery seemed to still be going as smoothly as it could and the reports were now only getting to Onni via radio for some reason, so Hildur was able to come back as soon as she had given essential news to her crew. He already knew the first question he wanted to ask her:  
-I've been using modifications of a rune I remembered seeing at home for my own work. It's the one that is supposed to keep sheep from wandering too far away from it. Are you the one who drew it, by any chance?  
-Yes.  
Reynir now felt even more foolish to have not connected the dots earlier. Hildur had stopped living in the house full time before Ólafur and Guðrún had, despite both of them being much older than her, because she had been accepted in a "special school" in Reykjavík. She had also been discrete about her studies, and later her profession, during her brief trips back home, but he had just mistaken it for being part of her personality. But bemoaning himself for doing stupid things had grown old during that trip that he had never been meant to be part of. There were plenty of other things that were better use of his mind right now.

The story Reynir was telling her wasn't exactly a happy one, yet had somehow managed to make it quite mesmerizing and make her almost wish she had seen its events happen. Hildur briefly found herself wondering when he had learned to report things that way, before realizing that Ólafur, Guðrún and Bjarni, who could let themselves be much more open about what had happened on the job when back at home, probably had something to do with it. As she listened to Reynir's story, she continued following that train of thought in the back of her head, until her mind clicked; her current position was that in which Reynir had spent more than a decade. How could a life of tending sheep compare to what seemed to be going on in the wider world in a young child's eyes? She felt even more foolish than before to have taken part in her parents' stop-gap solution to the fact that world existed outside of their small village, at a time at which she had been still somewhat of a child herself.

xxxx

Michael had obviously been bemused about what had happened the previous day. After sleeping on what to do, Mikkel had decided that the best approach was to see what explanation, even partial, Michael's mind had come up with and figure out what he could tell him from here. He had unfortunately been unable to prepare an explanation that wouldn't get Michael marked with one issue more than he actually had once he would get committed to the Mora mental ward. The truth would put him at odds with the usual Swedish attitude towards magic, which was similar to that of the Danes. Any explanation not involving magic could leave him convinced that some piece of advanced technology had been created when it had not. The latter possibility also begged the question of why their bare-bones expedition would have such a device, and why they would take it with them after abandoning the tank. Fortunately, Michael turned out to have been more observant about certain things than Mikkel had realized:  
-Are circles on walls why I can't leave?  
The correction of the few facts he had figured out would do for now. He however did his best to not give Michael any information that would let him find the rune keeping them all within the outpost on his own.

-I wasn't playing chess with him, I was just making the opponent's moves for him!  
Emil realized how silly what he had just said sounded almost as soon as he finished his sentence. Especially considering it did nothing to counter Lalli's sparsely-worded point about chess being made for two people and that he'd rather watch two people play it rather than just one. Emil sat and started playing, having arranged a way to tell Reynir he was starting to get tired with Mikkel before he had gone off to see his brother. Sigrun spent the morning resting on her own bed, in the cat's company, with her most obvious sign of activity being blurting out a "you have a lame idea of fun, kiddo" that really could have been directed at any of the three people in the room besides herself.

In the dazed state her infection left her in, it felt like it took Sigrun the entire morning to notice what the "boys" had managed to do on their own, possibly without noticing themselves. Tuuri had done so many small things in addition to her actual job that reminders that she was no longer here sometimes seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. Yet, Sigrun felt she wasn't getting as many as she could have, simply because all three of them were keeping each other occupied in ways plenty of people would have considered constructive. She knew all too well it could be entirely a surface thing for any one of them, but surface things sometimes had their way of creeping into the inside. Being able to fake having it together convincingly also deserved credit of its own, even if it never felt as good as _actually_ having it together. The was a situation where she needed to take what she was offered, and this was far from the worse she'd had to accept in her life.

Torbjörn had no more idea what to tell Onni than he did the day before, or the day before that. The possibility of someone dying had been on his horizon on a purely intellectual level, but he had never considered that that it would happen while the deceased person's older brother was comatose on his couch. Even less that he would get the news from a means that he didn't believe existed. The very nature of the news had also shattered his own deeply-held notion that some nations believed in magic as an extension of their religious belief, as something to hold onto in a world in which ordinary life was just as prone to sharp turns as any interaction with the trolls and their kin. He now knew that it could also mean being the bearer of bad news, and occasionally having someone who would refuse to believe it until it got confirmed via a harder to ignore channel. In spite of having seen a talking dog fade into thin air with his own eyes, the part of Torbjörn who refused to believe the news until he heard it from the crew members themselves over the radio was much bigger than he felt it should be. This was in no small part due to the fact that the children had been clamoring for news about Emil. If Torbjörn had received any good news about their cousin though the radio, reported by someone who had at least seen Emil in person, he would have told it to them, even if he had to withhold bad news about everyone else on the crew. He couldn't start telling the children that magic existed to explain where he got the news from, but he could also see various ways in which lying about getting first-hand or second-hand news of Emil on the radio could backfire, whether he was going to be actually doing so in the next few days or not. He realized that with the most recent incident that had allegedly involved magic, Mikkel had probably needed to provide an explanation to his brother much more urgently than he had to tell the children anything. Maybe he could ask him how he had approached the subject once they would get to talk on the radio. A random glance at Onni reminded him that he would have every right to go back to Finland with Lalli in tow as soon as the two of them would be reunited. Using him as a _de facto_ babysitter any longer than that would be pushing it. Come to think of it, he was more than pushing it by asking him to do that _now_. Starting to look for a new baby-sitter felt a little more doable than finding the right words to apologize to Onni, and he could maybe keep an eye out for any work Mikkel could do during his brother's stay in the mental ward while he was at it.

Having been able to more or less properly speak with both of them, then seeing them playing the same game, confirmed something Lalli had started to suspect before his thoughts got occupied by Tuuri's inevitable fate. Those two were, in a way, the same kind of idiot: a childhood much easier than his that had left them oblivious to a lot of the world's cruelty and the mission being their first real brush with it. There were still some differences between them that he had trouble pinning down, and he would definitely be trying to do so if it weren't for a much more intriguing mystery concerning his feelings towards these two. They both did similar things that irritated him, yet he felt like he was just barely tolerating them from Reynir, while there was a part of him who kept asking for more when they came from Emil. He was brought out of his thoughts by Emil halting the game, and Reynir fetching him a glass of water. When Emil walked towards the bunks after finishing the water, Lalli expected him to go on his own bed to take a nap, but he instead came to sit on the floor next to Lalli. Lalli managed to conjure a little Swedish:  
-Not sleeping?  
-I don't feel like doing it quite yet. I need to rest my mind a little before being able to fall asleep and being with you is good for that.  
It was another thing he appreciated in Emil. People frequently wanted him to "participate" more in the conversation, only to quite clearly want him to stop talking the few times he _did_ find something to say about the subject. Emil, at least, was fine with him not talking and didn't make him promptly regret the few words he managed to put in. Emil glanced in the direction of Reynir, who seemed to have set his mind on finishing the game on his own. Emil spoke again:  
-I hope you don't mind me asking this, but did Tuuri like chess? I just realized that I've been assuming she did for the last few days, but I don't actually know whether it was true or not.  
-She did.  
Emil glanced at Reynir:  
-So him playing alone _is_ as weird as I thought it was. But I guess it's a good thing that he didn't let the fact that he had to do it alone stop him. I know I was quite scared when I first realized I had to take both of us all the way up here on my own.  
Lalli was about to tell him that he knew because he had been there, even if it had taken Emil an entire day to realize it, when he looked at Reynir again. He'd liked seeing Emil start playing with him in part because Reynir playing alone meant Tuuri wasn't here to play with him. But Emil was right: he hadn't hesitated to set up the board as soon as he had given up on reading the books. In scouting, one was eventually supposed to do all of the job's regular tasks alone, so there was no such thing as a two-person task that exceptionally needed to be done alone because of another person being absent. This had probably been the reason Lalli hadn't seen what Emil had seen for himself. That getting used to someone being gone involves a lot of continuing doing what needs to be done without thinking too much about the fact that some normally occupied posts are vacant. Emil started yawning, bid him farewell and climbed in his bunk. As he started drifting into sleep himself, Lalli realized that Sigrun had left her bed a while ago, and had been gone too long to have simply been using the bathroom.


	7. Shifting horizons

**Shifting horizon**

Sigrun had gotten a little bored and decided to see what the Madsen twins were up too. It turned out that she had shown up just in time, as both of them had realized that the Icelanders tending to Michael would know Norwegian if they knew any Scandinavian languages at all, causing Michael to want to try understanding it again. Sigrun felt like she was starting to get him interested in a conversation about whether letting the trolls he had grown attached to live was such a good idea, regardless of their proximity to any kind of settlement. However, the conversation took an unexpected turn as she mentioned the death wishes that were sometimes expressed by trolls and a sufficiently well-known phenomenon that even Swedes and Danes didn't deny its existence:  
-I never heard them say they want to die. Not once.  
To anyone who had had just a short encounter with one troll, Sigrun could have simply pointed out that they could have simply not been around long enough to hear it. But what was she supposed to say to someone who had been around a bunch of them for ten years and was getting to live to tell the tale? As she tried to look for something to say, she remembered the reports of mental calls for help being used as traps from mages she had worked with and Emil, alongside all the times some of the verbal calls she had heard herself could have distracted her long enough to get herself killed. And now, someone that trolls had actively kept alive was reporting having never heard the calls for help. The thought of what this could mean made her skin crawl. It brought back the memory of couple who tried to get their way by claiming whatever they didn't like about how things were done was harming their young children in some way, while actually speaking to the children one-on-one would reveal that they weren't even aware of whatever their parents were complaining about that week. She looked at her left arm to remind herself of the concrete consequences of the proximity of trolls, that were still the same regardless of the deeper causes. That as many as possible needed to be killed for humanity to have any kind of chance to recover. And that because of this, people with Michael's viewpoint on the situation would always be considered in the wrong, regardless of the knowledge they had to back it up; once in a while, she had run into a recruit who had been lucky enough to go through their entire childhood without a troll-related tragedy occurring among friends or family and ended up asking why raiding the nests was necessary. Michael's case was different enough from that of those youths for her to not be entirely sure she wouldn't take his side if she knew everything he must have found out over the last decade. Yet, even now, part of her wanted to have this conversation for the off-chance of gleaning something that could make troll nest raids less deadly for her fellow hunters in addition to helping Mikkel with something in which she had more expertise than him. She spoke the words that would help at least one of her purposes:  
-Did you hear them say anything else? Besides asking for stories, of course.  
Michael looked about to speak, then crossed his arms:  
-You're a hunter. If I tell you what I heard, you will use it to hurt them. We talk about something else. Not trolls.  
This tended to happen during the conversations with recruits as well. Unfortunately, getting the conversation back on track when the other person insisted on talking about something else entirely wasn't her strong suit, even when she was in good health; she gave up and asked Michael if there was anything else he actually wanted to talk about.

xxxx

Reynir was going to be late compared to the other times he had come, as he was going to talk with his sister a little longer this time. Lalli thought he could get some rest, but found himself eyeing the chess board instead. He felt he now had enough of a grasp of the rules to try playing alone, and see how worthwhile it would be as a means of entertainment. He had never been one for any entertainment that involved other people, as even the smallest groups could have someone not come back one day, and make an extra person to mourn for those still alive. Up to very recently, he had wanted as few people as possible to be that to him, with the side effect of keeping people other than Tuuri and Onni from being sad if he ever ended up dying on duty. His thoughts on the subject quickly drifted into the fact that he actually wouldn't mind playing with Emil. But actually asking someone other than family to be brought to one's safe area for non-professional reasons had implications, especially for those who largely preferred being the one going to the one receiving. Reynir, in his ignorance of protocol and barriers alike, was like that bird that flew into an open window, landed on a random piece of furniture, and assumed it was welcome unless someone actively shooed it away. Lalli's own stay in Emil's safe area had been one of necessity, at least at the beginning. Who would he ask to bring Emil to his place, anyway? Reynir clearly had no idea how to get himself to where Emil was, otherwise he would have tried looking for him rather than spend a whole week fruitlessly waiting for any sign of life on Lalli's part. He briefly considered Reynir's sister, only to realize that in addition to the fact that he knew her even less, both siblings were a bad choice for the same reason: he and them would be going their separate ways once this mission would be completely over. He took a while to realize he considered this to be a problem because he wanted to be able to still see Emil after the mission was over, which had never happened the few previous times he'd had to temporarily work with someone else. Shifting back to his initial train of thought, he realized that his only other option was Onni, who was out of the question for plenty of reasons. Then, he noticed that he had another option: becoming good enough to be able to go see Emil on a regular basis on his own power.

xxxx

-Tomorrow evening? Are you sure?  
Reynir nodded:  
-They made more progress than planned yesterday evening and last night. If nothing makes them late, they should be here before nightfall tomorrow.  
Mikkel switched to Danish for the benefit of Sigrun and Emil:  
-Looks like tonight is the last night we are going to spend here, and we'll have all day to pack tomorrow.  
Sigrun piped up:  
-Guess this is our cue to start figuring out how presentable we can make ourselves with what we have around here. People are probably going to take photos, if only to try to convince people back home that what we did was a bad idea.  
Mikkel decided it was time to give her a reality check:  
-We can bathe and I can mend some of the clothes, but the only things we have than aren't already on someone's back are Lalli's uniform and the jacket we lent Reynir.  
Sigrun sighed in resignation, and held something up to Mikkel's face:  
-Fine. But we should at least give that thing a proper wash.  
"That thing" turned out to be Reynir's braid, that seemed to have become the home of various stray pieces of nature during the trek. A full comb and wash were probably the only means to get rid of them all at that point.  
-I'm sure he'd appreciate the sentiment, but doing it properly would take all d…  
He realized too late that some people _did_ have all day to do it.

Sigrun almost regretted her project idea for the day when she was reminded that braiding hair tended to make it appear _shorter_ than in actually was, and that the reminder was applying to a braid that was already reaching below its owner's waist. Emil fortunately knew a few things about caring for hair, and the wash and first comb took the rest of the morning. The hair would need to dry for some time before it could be made into a braid that wouldn't get messy again too fast, and was wrapped in a couple of towels. Both she and Emil decided to use that time to account for the fact that they were still nursing a fever and have a nap. Reynir decided to sit down as well, as his hair could get quite heavy when it was both wet and undone. As Sigrun and Emil were fixing his hair, he'd found nothing better to do than think about the fact that he'd soon be back to safety and probably expected to make up his mind on what kind of magic he wanted to learn. He'd gotten a couple of ideas, only to quickly realize that their main applications would be military. He had tried to think of specializations that would enable him to help without getting to far away from home, but nothing had come to mind. Right now, his best hope was that at least one of the specializations he was currently considering had civilian applications he wasn't thinking of due to ignorance. He planned to ask Hildur about it in the evening.

Once the announcement of just how soon the boat would arrive had been made, Mikkel's priorities had shifted to spending as much time with Michael as he could spare and get him ready to be put into the care of the Icelanders. The latter consisted mostly of checking for anything that could make getting on the boat difficult, if only because it was going to be taking him further away from his living place of the last ten years than he currently was and entail him spending at least a couple weeks alone in a small room. Eventually, he had one last question left to ask:  
-Do you happen to remember anything from the day I was fired from the Kastrup campaign?  
-No, why?  
Mikkel let out a sigh of resignation before explaining:  
-Something happened that day. That something may make you have bad feelings towards me if you remember it during the trip. I didn't mention it before because I didn't want to put an extra burden on you, but I thought it might be a better idea to ask you whether you would be okay with me telling about it upfront or not.  
Michael though for a few moments before responding:  
-Tell it.

It hadn't been like Michael to commit a blunder. But he had, big time, and it had been something that made admitting to it and resigning before someone could fire him the only graceful way out. However, doing so a few minutes earlier or later wasn't going to make much of a difference, so he had decided to use that time to tell Mikkel what had happened, so he wouldn't be surprised at his resignation. Michael's blunder turned out to have been partly witnessed by someone. A very new someone who had only seen Michael's back and had no idea he had a twin. Their overlapping duties had meant that many people were never sure which brother they were working with, and Mikkel's habit of seeing how long he could fool people into thinking he was actually Michael had only gotten some of those people even more confused. When he claimed Michael's slip-up was his, nobody had questioned it, or if they had, had also figured out that they should keep their mouth shut. Soon after, Michael was sent to one of the outposts. The outpost had been evacuated after the fall of Kastrup, but the few other people assigned there had been forced to leave without Michael after he hadn't come back from a shift. After what had happened, nobody had considered sending people to go look for him to be worth it. The initial expedition mission plan was supposed to bring the crew nowhere near the outpost Michael had very briefly worked at, but fate had managed to twist itself in that direction anyway.


	8. Families

**Families**

The thought that he should have been the one sent away made Michael ask himself a question that hadn't crossed his mind before this: would he have preferred that last ten years of his life to not happen as they had? He didn't have a clear-cut answer, but he could tell that the idea that someone else could have ended up in his position if he had been sent away didn't sit well with him. In spite of his older memories having gone fuzzy, he remembered spending a long time afraid that the trolls would decide to eat him from one day to the next. That the fact that he could no longer keep himself from reciting the story when a certain point of the evening came stemmed from that. But he also felt that the price he had had to pay for his survival was a fairly low one. Over the years, he had discovered that they would feed him whether he told the same story each night or rotated between more than a dozen different ones. He had never dared try to go a single night without telling the story, even on days he was quite sure he had been sick. It had been far from being all bad, but the bad aspects were things he wouldn't wish upon other people. He also suspected than someone else than him would have dealt with the trolls in a way that would have gotten them eaten instead. As for the good aspects, he had figured out that he was going to a place treating crazy people in part because he was seeing any at all. Spending ten years living among trolls _had_ to be an entirely bad experience, and nobody seemed to want to hear about it being anything else, unless it was part of the explanation of one of his recent actions. Sigrun had looked like she would listen, if only briefly. He had almost started speaking to her, before part of him had realized that she was probably going to use whatever he told her to kill trolls. If he couldn't help those among which he had lived, he could at least avoid helping people kill them. Despite the fact that his sentences, and even thoughts, were already much better and more complex than the day he had returned to the outpost for the first time in years, Michael was reminded of how limited his vocabulary still was when he tried to convey all those feelings into spoken words to Mikkel. His mind fortunately reminded him of the initial reason Mikkel had told him about the incident, so he decided to simply tell him there were no bad feelings about the incident, at least now. Mikkel soon had to leave, saying he'd be back with dinner later in the day, and told him to try to do both the family tree and counting exercises at least once during the day if he could. Little after Mikkel left, Michael looked at the pieces of paper with names written on them, alongside a bunch of blank ones that had been left in the room along with a pen in case he remembered any other people he could have known in his previous life. He got an idea, and had no time to lose wondering what the chances of it working actually were.

Mikkel almost reached the barracks before realizing the weight that had been taken off his shoulders after hearing Michael's answer. It must have shown on his face, as Reynir looked slightly worried when he saw him come in. Mikkel reassured him:  
-Don't worry, I'm just a little tired. It won't become a problem before we have nothing to do but rest for two weeks. Have any of you eaten yet?  
-No. Everyone else is having a nap and it's a little awkward to move much when my hair is like this.  
Mikkel really wasn't that surprised that Reynir's hair required two towels and its own chair to dry, but getting a good look at the scene that resulted from that fact gave Mikkel amusement that was much needed. He grabbed a can of fish for himself and another for Reynir, who was already sitting at the table.  
-It really is long. Even when it's never cut, hair usually falls out on its own before getting that long.  
Reynir looked at the chair supporting his hair with a raised eyebrow:  
-Then how come it got so long? Could magic have something to do with it?  
-You'd have to ask your sister about this. But to my knowledge, it can just happen from having the right genes.  
Thirty seconds later, Mikkel was relieved that Reynir hadn't actually choked on the piece of fish he had been eating when the statement had been made. It looked like today was a day of people hearing something they needed to hear without knowing it.

xxxx

Sigrun was woken up to a surprisingly good smell and opened her eyes to the surprisingly pleasing sight of Reynir's hair already re-braided. The young man seemed to be helping Mikkel arrange things on the table, which her brain took a while to register as actual food on actual plates. Mikkel admitted to have used some of the time he had spent outside setting up fish traps and collecting edible seaweed, having guessed that the others would soon get tired of the canned fish, and that he could manage to make one freshly-prepared meal before they got picked up if he spread the preparations over the rest of the week. The meal was good enough, at least compared to what Mikkel had produced during most of the expedition, while Lalli reluctantly let himself be spoon-fed by Emil. Sigrun didn't comment on the fact that the mush Lalli's food had been reduced to for the sake of his stomach looked oddly like the stuff Mikkel had fed the cat. The only solid food Lalli was allowed that evening was a single cookie from the handful Mikkel still had and decided to add to the meal. There was a toast to Tuuri, during which Emil helped Lalli hold a glass and raise his somewhat in the same direction as everyone else's.

Mikkel had found a covered plate, and enough ingredients to make a portion for Michael in addition to everyone else. There had even been a cookie to spare for him, despite him being quite sure there had been just enough left for each member of the crew to have one when the trek had started. He briefly considered the reason he could have counted one too many without meaning to, but decided it wasn't the time to go into too deep thought about it. As he entered the infirmary, he found one of the beds Michael wasn't using covered with a bunch of the pieces of paper, each bearing a very short name. He put the tray down:  
-What are those supposed to be?  
-Names I gave to trolls. Arranged like you told me.  
Mikkel only then noticed that most of the papers were arranged into groups, each more or less following the pattern in which Michael was supposed to re-arrange the names of their parents and siblings. Upon closer examination, he found Michael's name in one of the groups. He put his hand next to it to show Michael he had noticed it.  
-Always the same six. Got food for me. Shared theirs if there was less than usual. Slept next to me. Said no when the ones from other groups wanted to eat me. Some in other groups are scary. Was sure they would eat me if stories stopped. I followed your friend to get away from them. But those six are good. Some in the other groups too.  
Michael picked up the six pieces of paper that were surrounding his name, and another handful among the other groups. He gave them to Mikkel:  
-I'm trying hard to remember the people back home. I want someone else to know about the good trolls. Someone who won't use what I say to kill them. Someone who knows it's important. Can it be you?  
It took a few moments for Mikkel to process what Michael was asking him. Part of him questioned how good an idea it was to let Michael trust him with this in the long run. A much bigger part felt like the was no way of refusing his request without feeling like he was letting his brother down the very first time he was somewhat treating him like family on his own accord since they had reunited. He stifled a sigh of resignation:  
-You can tell me all about them. _After_ you eat.

xxxx

By the time Mikkel crept back into the barracks, it was almost too dark to do so. To his surprise, he was greeted by Reynir's voice whispering voice when he came in:  
-You're back. I was starting to think you had decided to sleep there.  
-Speaking of sleep, how come _you_ are still awake? I hope you weren't _that_ worried about me not coming back, even if the sentiment is appreciated.  
-I guess it was half that, half being too exited about actually seeing Hildur tomorrow. Ah, I just remembered she wanted to tell me something tonight. Guess it will have to wait a little if I can't fall asleep.  
-I don't feel like going to sleep right now either. It's a shame we can't have a conversation without running the risk of waking the others.  
-Yeah… wait, we have the chessboard and the stove is still giving off a little light.

xxxx

Despite the fact that it would take the better part of the day for the boat to be even visible in the distance, everyone else had decided that "taking a breath of fresh air" was a worthy activity for the day. Once he had made sure the less in shape half of the crew had blankets and something warm to drink, Mikkel had seen the more rational reason to be out there. When you were about to be locked in small room for at least two weeks in less than a day, any time you could spend outside suddenly became precious. However, when it came to go get various objects from inside the barracks, the feverish ones suddenly remembered that they needed rest, Emil's plan for staying warm involved Lalli and a shared blanket, and the requested item was frequently one Mikkel preferred to not trust Reynir with. By the time he noticed that Michael had been hanging on one of the sheltered benches facing the harbor with a sleeping kitten on his lap since an uncertain amount of time, he felt he couldn't ask him to go back to the infirmary without someone protesting that Michael hadn't done anything to warrant such an order. Mikkel settled for sitting next to him, which enabled him to keep an eye on him, stop him if he suddenly acted inappropriately and simply answer any questions he could have about the others. Due to the thoughts that had gone though his head as he had been playing chess with Reynir during the previous night, Mikkel ended up being the one with a question of Michael:  
-I've been wondering if those six could have been that close to each other because they were family, or at least friends, before they turned.  
-I don't know. They don't seem to remember things from before getting sick. Maybe they were friends before. Maybe they hated each other before. They are like a troll-family now.  
-Uh?  
A quick survey of the shelter revealed the voice to have been that of Emil, whom, Mikkel was just realizing, was probably hearing Michael speak for the first time. Mikkel also noticed that Lalli was starting to look a little sleepy, and decided to make sure that he was _just_ tired and not needing to be taken back inside. Although he found nothing worrying, he decided that Lalli would still be more comfortable sleeping inside, which turned out to be the ticket to get Emil to spend a little time between four walls as well. Soon, everyone got hungry for lunch, and the perpetual back and fourth between the barracks and the harbor shelter started anew.


	9. Ride home

**Ride home**

Emil was sure he had dozed off for just a moment. How could the others have gone while leaving not only him, but also Lalli, behind?  
-What's this?  
Emil realized the faint voice was coming from the bed, and that it was Lalli's. But how could he…  
-Wake up, the boat is here.  
Mikkel's large hand, Mikkel's voice, definitely Mikkel's horrible accent. Had he just been dreaming? But how? Even during Lalli's stay, elements from the usual dream that had no reason to change due to his presence had stayed the same. Emil yawned, and turned in Mikkel's direction to see that he wasn't alone: a vaguely familiar-looking dark-haired woman whose hair was arranged into shoulder-length braids was with him. She spoke to him in Norwegian that sounded somewhat accented compared to Sigrun's:  
-Could you please move? I would like to examine your friend before we get him on the boat.  
From Emil's own experience, being asked to move, especially when it came to people in need of medical attention, tended to mean "and leave the room while you're at it, unless you happen to be some kind of medical professional or there's a blizzard outside". As soon as he went through the door, he realized the reason why the woman's face had given him such a feeling of familiarity: she looked like an older version of Hildur. Emil made it to the harbor just in time to see a boat leaving with Mikkel's brother sat between two muscular men who made the Madsen twins look small in comparison. Emil couldn't help but notice that one of the guards had black hair, and a braid dancing at the back of his head as the small motorboat made it back to the actual cargo ship further down. Sigrun, who was speaking Norwegian with a third Icelander who had stayed ashore, noticed Emil's arrival:  
-Here you are. Just convinced them to have you on the same ride as Lalli and their medic. Mikkel and I need to answer a few extra questions before they can get the tag-along on the bigger boat with all the necessary measures.

Once onboard the raft heading for the ship, Emil found out that the medic tending to Lalli was indeed Reynir and Hildur's older sister Guðrún. One of the two people escorting Mikkel's brother also turned out to be the oldest of the five siblings. He, unfortunately, also found out that he was _still_ going to be the person with the most knowledge of Finnish other than Lalli onboard. Guðrún reassured him, saying that mage dream communication should allow the ship's crew to keep Lalli alive and physically well in spite of the physical-world language barrier.

The raft that had been used to transport Michael came back for Mikkel, Sigrun and Reynir. As the boat started rushing towards the ship, Sigrun had a sudden spell of drowsiness, and decided to deal with is by using Mikkel's shoulder as a pillow:  
-I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm going to miss not seeing this kid for a couple weeks.  
The Norwegian-speaking Icelandic sailor corrected her:  
-It's actually going to be one month for everyone, immune or not. We have to make sure you don't have any of the dozens of other things that could be running around out here.  
As Sigrun suddenly started protesting the length of the quarantine, Mikkel couldn't help but think of how she had initially reacted to having to keep Reynir around. At the time, he couldn't imagine her ever… his brain suddenly caught on to one of the implications of what Michael had told him earlier: trolls that were currently family, with little to no regard as to how well they had gotten along before their respective transformations. The effects of the Rash had left those trolls no choice but to ignore the past. All this time, Mikkel had been trying to return Michael to his old self. For the first time, he considered that there could be another way he could try approaching Michael's situation, provided he was alright with the idea that was creeping into his mind.

Emil and Lalli, the latter in a wheelchair pushed by a woman who wasn't Guðrún, where leaving the small radio room when he, Sigrun and Reynir were led to it. Each of them said a few words as token proof they were still alive, then Mikkel was kept by Torbjörn to speak about more personal matters. Torbjörn offered him to stay at his house if he ever had lodging-related trouble. He also mentioned having been keeping an eye out for job Mikkel could do while looking for a new babysitter for his children, but having found nothing on either front. Mikkel unfortunately had to agree with Sigrun when she, upon overhearing the conversation, asked how dense a person could be out loud. Mikkel got an idea of the reason for which the job was open when he told Emil the news, and Emil responded with almost deadpan "good luck" despite the fact that he had given every sign of adoring his younger cousins during the mission.

Once the decontamination procedure was over, Reynir ended up having to re-do his braid for the second time in as many days and use a spare drawstring to secure it. He was next brought to his room and took about half an hour to realize that only one of the five bags that he had found on his bed contained the items that had probably been issued to everyone else. Each of the four other bags contained an item that he had recently asked one of his siblings to bring back once they came home if they could. One of them was a copy of a book Ólafur had once borrowed from a colleague and really liked. As he was pondering on whether to read it now or keep for a time of the trip during which he may have literally nothing else to keep himself busy, he heard a knock on the glass:  
-Hey.  
Reynir looked up, to see Bjarni's face wearing an expression somewhere between relief and awkwardness:  
-Sorry about what happened. I shouldn't have given you such a dumb idea. I really thought that seeing Reykjavík would be enough for you.  
Once he had expressed his relief to see that Bjarni was on board as well, Reynir first reflex was to correct him:  
-It wasn't all your fault. Some of the dumb things I did had nothing to do with what you told me.  
One of the things he had shared with Hildur over the past few days had been the exact course of misunderstandings that had made him end up in Denmark with five complete strangers from other countries. If the three others had been on board all this time, Hildur must have told them about some of it.  
-I still should have informed you a little better than I did. But… you kind of have a point. Mom and dad thought it was a good idea to ask Hildur to not tell Ólafur, Guðrún and me about the mage thing, and instead let us think they just _really_ , _really_ wanted you to stay at home. We didn't find out about it before we were all on the boat, and Guðrún accidentally found out that one of the things worrying her was something she was trying to keep hidden from the rest of the crew unless she saw a clear reason to do otherwise.  
Something crossed Reynir's mind:  
-Do you mean you wouldn't have suggested I visit Reykjavík if you had known?  
Bjarni seemed to be pondering for a few moments before answering:  
-I really don't know. On one hand, I would probably have thought twice before suggesting that you check out the town with a _mage school_ in it. One the other, I think I was starting to get a little annoyed about how they were still treating you like a kid, and wanted to show you had other options. I almost ended up in your position, after all.  
Aside from the number to put on letters sent relatively close to his birthday, Reynir had never really paid attention to the fact that Bjarni was actually a couple years younger than Hildur, or realized that he would have been the youngest of the family if he hadn't come along. He had only remembered him being the one whose company he had been able to enjoy the longest before ending up as the only child of the family still living at home.  
-It really wasn't that different from home, in some ways. Since I couldn't fight and had no reason to be involved in the work, I had to stay were it was relatively safe and do what I was told. But I could go outside if it was sunny and we a sure there were no trolls near the campsite. And do a lot of things mom and dad had told me would immediately make me sick. So I knew that if I was told to stop making noise and go inside, things were _really_ getting dangerous.  
Bjarni finally let something resembling a real smile show up on his face, if only briefly:  
-I've always wondered which of the things I heard about the Rash were true, and which ones were scaremongering holdovers from "nobody gets to leave ever" times. Would you mind giving me more detail?

xxxx

This time, the dream was taking place in a strangely empty and lock-free version of the ship's quarantine ward. The only other person in the dream was Lalli, already looking much better than a few hours ago. Emil had found nothing better to do than following him around as he was looking for a way out, which was to him more than enough proof that he was dealing with the real one. Mere seconds after Lalli had told him he could help by keeping an eye out for anything strange on the ceiling, one patch started to look deformed in some way for which he couldn't find words before it tore up like canvas. Emil barely had time to register water coming through the new hole before getting his second shower of the day. Fortunately, he _did_ manage to move before something much more solid, and human-shaped, came through the hole.  
-Ouch!  
The dripping figure turned out to be Reynir, dressed in the kind of clothes that he would probably own if his family was a little better-off. As he was sitting down, Lalli was placing a stepladder near the hole. As soon as it was somehow sealed with magic, Lalli started interrogating Reynir while settling down on his perch. In spite of understanding the words both of them spoke, Emil was unable to follow the subject of the conversation involving various areas of the sea the interrogation gradually slipped into. The only thing familiar to Emil was the look Lalli was giving Reynir, which was the one that said "I hate you guts, but I have to admit you're somewhat good at what you're supposed to be doing.". The conversation finished, Reynir thanked Emil for the chess games, then left the way he had come with a little assistance from Lalli and a promise to see if his sister or Lalli's cousin had any idea about the nature of their shared dream. Emil was about to utter his surprise at Lalli's cousin being a mage as well, before remembering that Tuuri had already told him, at a time at which he had refused to believe her.

xxxx

The next morning, Onni had to make sure he had correctly heard what Hildur had told him through the radio. The phenomenon she was describing wasn't completely unheard of, but usually required an active effort from both people involved to his knowledge, and the circumstances that could create such shared dream realms dropped to exactly one when one of their residents wasn't a mage. Part of Onni hoped that this was simply a side effect of the process of Lalli staying in Emil's mind for so long, then making it back to his own, that was so far unknown to due this being the first time such a combination of events happened. Another part of him was already resigned to the fact that he was likely going to be seeing more of Torbjörn, Siv and their kids in the future, even once the mission would be completely wrapped up.


End file.
